Saving Sushi
by Yoki-chan
Summary: Shinzo's an untrusting immortal. Matt doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Bukiyo's a half-demon. Sevin just wants to hold on to the only person that stayed by his side. Now they must join to save the girl who loves them most.
1. Visions

**Notes:**This story was originally written because I was bored. It wasn't meant for anyone else and I didn't care too much about how it was done, so after I went over this chapter, I noticed there were some flaws in the flow of it. I was going to rewrite it before it was posted but I figured that since I'm just getting the idea going and the main story hasn't come in yet, it didn't matter much. I realize that you don't really have a good look at how life is for the characters but I promise that'll come in the first few chapters. So. Anyway.  
  
Obviously, this isn't Neopia. It'll probably still contain some Neopia-like things, such as petpets, neopian stores, ect. The pets are all in humanistic form because it's easier for me to write that way.  
  
Kijo, Sev, Kam, and Rio aren't my neopets. They belong to my friends Mary and Connie. I have permission to use them.  
  
**Disclaimer-thingy:**Neopets.com doesn't belong to me. Yet. Shinzo, Sushi, Bukiyo, Matt, and all of their family are my orginal characters. You can't have them. Well,maybe for some ramen...no. No, they're all mine.  
  
Ahem. To the story, now.  
  
** Saving Sushi  
  
Chapter One:Visions**  
  
Shinzo Kuyka was on a mission.  
  
Granted, it wasn't a _dangerous_ mission, nor the type of thing that he usually took an interest in. There were no guns, flames, or car chases involved and unless he had an allergic reaction he wasn't aware of, the plan should go off without a hitch. He searched the dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of suspects before finally spotting his target. The search was over, the mission nearly completed.  
  
After looking through multiple plastic cells with neatly-written labels across them, each housing small, colorful objects within, Shinzo had located the rum-flavoured jelly beans.  
  
He was getting too old for this kind of work.  
  
"Did you pick something out?" a familiar voice behind him demanded. Sushi Kuyka stood with a slightly amused look on her face, lips twisted in a teasing smirk. She held a pack of peach gummy rings in one hand and strawberry twists in the other. "Matt already bought his gum and chocolate. He went to unlock the car."  
  
Shinzo held up his rum jellybeans with an air of satisfaction. "Got 'em, fish girl." She raised an eyebrow and he smiled, crimson eyes glinting mischievously.  
  
Sushi laughed, a soft, ringing sound. "Rum? What are they trying to sell kids these days?"  
  
"Only the best!" Shinzo answered, helping himself to another bag. "And remember, you're---"  
  
"Paying. I know." Sushi shook her head playfully, making the tangerine blonde waves bounce on her shoulders. "The sacrifices I make for a day with the family..." She snatched the bags out of his hands. "Anyway, 'Zo, get out of my sight. I'll be there in a minute."  
  
Shinzo chuckled to himself as the seventeen-year-old marched up to the cash register. Sushi had begged him to come to Candy, Candy, Candy, an enormous new store filled from top to bottom with the delicious stuff. Shinzo was not a fan of sweets, some sour candies and, of course, the rum jellybeans being the only ones of his liking. He did like their little outings, though. He always put on a great show of protesting and Sushi always did the same with begging. She _was_ getting good. One day, he might even have to go somewhere without her paying for it.  
  
As Shinzo exited the store, he was hit with a wave of intense fear. An image of Sushi, sweet Sushi covered in blood, flitted though his mind. He wavered and leaned back against the outside walls of the store, shaking his head to clear the ghastly picture. He ran his hand through his spiked, charcoal colored mane of crimson-tipped hair and held back a startled cry. Why would he have thought that?  
  
The deceptively naive girl he had come to call his sister had had a horrific past, one filled with violence and bloodshed. When he had first came upon her over a year ago, weak, nearly starved, and wandering around without any real goal, she had told him her story. He had somehow induced memory loss in Sushi, actually the second time she had lost her memory, and had taken her to a nice-looking home in the nearby town. He was hoping they could just give her some help and then take her someplace she'd be safe, but in that house, with a boarder named Amaya and a young owner named Yoki, they had both found a home. He had also been wandering after losing his family and best friend.  
  
Koki came into the picture later, a loving mute with strange telepathic abilities. She had been caught up in a gang fight where her voice box was smashed and her brother was the same person who'd killed Shinzo's wife. Nevertheless, Koki was the one who listened to and accepted him, and he had always adored her. Sushi, with her unabashed happiness in the face of his misery, came to annoy him. They adopted cousins and Sushi's half-brother Matt, abandoned by his dad, had appeared. Sushi's old enemy came after her and she'd been forced to kill him with Shinzo, Koki, and Matt by her side. However,Sushi was hurt badly, Shinzo was wounded, Matt was put in a near-coma position, and his Koki-angel...she was killed.  
  
Sushi had been his only comfort then, and he had loved her in his own way even before that. She had made him a promise that no matter what, as long as she lived, she'd stay by his side. He had gladly returned the promise. After all he'd done to hurt her, he was greatful she could even be around him at all. But then that was Sushi; incredibly strange, strong and fragile at the same time, with an unchanging love and a smile that was there even through tears. Almost everyone she met was changed in some way, and he was one of the many who had a desire to protect her.  
  
But this was just stupid. Sushi was perfectly safe, the only danger being that the guy at the register would charge too much for the candy or maybe flirt with her.  
  
With an uneasy smile, Shinzo headed towards the car on the far end of the lot, pausing when he heard someone call his name. He turned to see Sushi running towards him, a bright smile on her face, the hand not holding bags of candy waving wildly. And then...  
  
_Sushi sailing through the air as the car plowed into her head on, her mouth opened in a silent scream, he lavendar eyes widened in shock as she hit the ground, skidded, came to a stop with her legs and arms twisted grotesquely, blood already starting to grow into a pool around her---  
_  
"Shinzo? Shinzo!"  
  
The male looked down to see Sushi staring worriedly at him. Sushi, not bloody, not on the ground. Sushi, not flying through the air, not with her eyes forever frozen in a surprised position. Sushi, alive and whole and so perfectly _her_.  
  
He wrapped the girl in a hug, feeling tears sting his eyes. Why? Why was he thinking things like that? The images had been so real, so clear. His chest tightened and he drew Sushi into an even stronger embrace. He needed her, the whole family needed her. She was the invincible light that drove away the darkness every Kuyka carried in their soul. She was as bright as the sun, and even if she might be a self-destructing sun that would eventually implode,she was brilliant and fabulous and _Gods, he loved her!_  
  
Almost as soon as Sushi reached up and tentively put her arms around him, Shinzo pulled away. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Sushi broke the silence.  
  
"Is everything alright, Shinzo?"  
  
He nodded mutely.  
  
"Then why...?"  
  
"I've been having these sibling urges lately...to spend time with you guys and all that." Shinzo turned his eyes towards the heavens in a why-me look. "It's actually a _waste_ of time, if you ask me. Damn annoying."  
  
Sushi looked him over suspiciously, then broke out into a grin. "Aww, how cute!"  
  
"I wonder if there's some kind of medicane I could take for it-"  
  
"That's so sweet,Zo.You know-"  
  
"-because it's starting to piss me off-"  
  
"-I was a little worried, but-"  
  
"-and I really don't want to turn into one of those sentimental dolts.People just hold you down, anyway."  
  
"-now I know you really love us."  
  
"I do not!" Shinzo cried disgustedly. "I...I haven't been getting enough sleep lately or something."  
  
Sushi smiled knowingly, threading her arm through Shinzo's. "Whatever you say, sentimental dolt."  
  
Though he snorted convincingly and followed her out to the car, Shinzo's mind was filled with worries. He had never had visions like that before. Memories, maybe, and dreams where he happily tortured his wife's killer, but nothing as real as that. He couldn't pass it off as imagination or too much of Yoki's cooking.  
  
If he didn't find a way to stop it, something bad would happen soon.  
  
And it would happen to his sister.


	2. Sounds

** Disclaimer-thingy:**Neopets.com doesn't belong to me. However, I do own a retired elephant circus in Alaska. Or so says Auntie Bobina. And I always trust Bobina. After all, that's who I get my drugs from. Oh yeah, and the characters belong to me or Mary or Connie. And the story line is mine. Buaha.  
  
** Saving Sushi  
  
Chapter Two:Sounds  
**  
As his cup of strawberry butter tea rolled off the coffee table and shattered on the floor, the liquid that used to be inside seeping into the vinalla-colored carpet, Matsoma Waseru was staring into space. Breaking glass didn't seem to phase the fourteen-year-old half as much as the screams erupting inside his own head.  
  
Matt, though undeniably weird, had never heard voices that weren't real. Even in the Kuyka household, where strangeness was as much a part of everyday life as breathing, nobody had experianced spells like that when they were awake.  
  
The boy suddenly clenched his eyes shut, rising his hands to cover his ears. The sounds seemed to reverberate through his robotic arm, giving him the urge to pinch himself to make sure he was awake. Awake or not, that wouldn't do any good. Matt's nerve endings didn't reach his skin and he wouldn't feel a thing.  
  
"Nerves!" Matt thought aloud. "That's it! Maybe I'm having an attack..."  
  
Standing up and opening his eyes, he forced himself to walk to full- length mirror and peer at his reflection. There didn't seem to be anything wrong. His golden eyes didn't have the strange, hazy look of Sushi's whenever her nerves gave her problems. His skin was normal, not stark white, and no straightjacket replaced his tee-shirt and jeans. His hair was strawberry blonde, thankfully without dried blood anywhere in it from a knock on the head that he didn't remember.  
  
None of that mattered much when the cacophony inside his head turned from crazed screams and uncomprehensible whispers into real words, cries for help from a voice he'd never forget.  
  
"Suu?" Matt whispered, horrified. Almost as soon as it had left him, his voice came back in a flood of strengh and worry for his half sister. "SUSHI!"  
  
He raced towards her room, banging into the wall and knocking off a picture in his haste. He flung open the door and charged into the room only to find Sushi laying on her bed, typing away at her laptop as music blared through it's speakers. She glanced up at him and, seeing the fear on his face, snapped the lid of the computer shut and sat up.  
  
"Matt-Matt? What's wrong?"  
  
"N-nothing," he stammered. It was the truth, too. The noise in his head had shut off the minute he'd seen Sushi.  
  
"Really? You look scared to death."  
  
"I spilled my tea on the carpet---"  
  
"Oh, Matt!" Sushi moaned. "Not in the living room!"  
  
Matt nodded, a little embarassed. Here he was thinking Sushi was in major trouble while she was worried about the tea staining the carpet.  
  
"Well, let's see how bad it is," she sighed, rising from her bed and heading towards the living room. Matt followed silently, stopping when he noticed the picture that had fallen from the wall.  
  
It had to be coincidence. Maybe there was something in that tea, he'd caught Shinzo giving him a rather evil glare earlier. Yeah, that must have been it. Shinzo must've slipped some kind of drug in his tea. Gods knew he would be able to get a hold of some, and that was just the kind of thing Shinzo would do for a laugh.  
  
But Shinzo had taken off somewhere before Matt poured his tea, and that meant that Shinzo would have had to poison the whole batch. He wasn't stupid enough to do that. Sushi would kill him, and there was no telling what it would do to the already insane Yoki.  
  
In the living room, Sushi was exclaiming over the mess, but Matt barely heard her.  
  
This wasn't coincidence. This was an omen.  
  
The picture laying on the floor, glass from the broken frame strawn around it, was one of Sushi.  
  
**Authors Note:** Short chapter, I know. I just want to get all the characters in here. Two more chapters and we'll _really_ get started. 


	3. Premonitions

**Disclaimer:** I don't own neopets. I do own all the characters in this chapter, and the story idea. Wallow in the glory that is me.  
  
** Saving Sushi  
  
Chapter Three:Premonitions**  
  
At about the time Matsoma started hearing voices, somewhere a city away in a comfortably cluttered apartment, Bukiyo Nuruchiro decided it was high time for him to start wearing glasses. After all, his cousin would never be standing outside his door without being dragged there by force, and he saw no ropes around Shinzo's wrists, nor a conniving little sibling lurking behind the man. So much for any demon vision inherited from his father.  
  
"Are ya just gonna stand there like a dumbarse, or can I come in?" Shinzo growled annoyedly, pushing the door a little further inward. Bukiyo lowered his hands after making sure that no, his vision was not failing him, and he could count the ten fingers just fine.  
  
"Ah, yeah, sure..." Bukiyo stepped back and Shinzo brushed past him, plopping down on the worn couch.  
  
"I need to talk to ya," Shinzo said pointedly.  
  
"You're using your street voice. Must be something important," Bukiyo noted, sliding into the armchair in front of Shinzo wearily. The two had never gotten along very well and today his twin Satsuki was out shopping, so she couldn't play peacekeeper.  
  
"Well, when you've been around for a thousand years, I think you've earned the right to talk however you want," Shinzo intoned coolly, using the excuse he'd often given Koki when she'd scolded him for not using proper diction. That would make her freeze and be kind to her "poor, immortal dear, who had to suffer through so much", although Shinzo regretted rubbing in his immortality now that Koki was dead. He'd gladly speak in any language she wanted him to if it'd bring her back, but with Bukiyo he didn't care.  
  
"Being a half-demon would probably give you the same right, and so what? That doesn't mean I should roar at people or something."  
  
Shinzo scowled but was forced to take in Bukiyo's full appearance as he said that. Deep violet eyes that slanted upwards at the tip, clawed hands, fangs, odd crimson-purple hair that Bukiyo had grown into long spikes, the bright sun symbol on his shoulder. And, of course, those leathery wings with sharp tips of bone. Bukiyo winced under his stare, a very un-demonlike blush rising to his face.  
  
"Anyway, Shinzo, I wasn't saying that it was wrong."  
  
Shinzo shook his head, waving his arms in front of his face. "Alright, whatever. I don't care what you think about me. This is about fish girl."  
  
"About Suu-chan?" Bukiyo asked, startled.  
  
"That's what I said, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah, but..." Bukiyo imagined Sushi, smiling and laughing, with her happy cries of 'Buki-kun!Satsu!' whenever he and Satsuki came to visit. His face paled. "There's nothing wrong with her, is there?"  
  
"No," Shinzo sighed, then added, "Not yet."  
  
"Not yet?" Bukiyo echoed. "What do you mean, not yet?"  
  
Hurriedly, Shinzo explained what had happened when they went shopping at Candy, Candy, Candy as Bukiyo listened attentively.  
  
"So, it's really stupid, but I've never had anything like that happen before, and I guess I was..." Shinzo paused, then mumbled the last word almost incomprehensibly under his breath,"...worried."  
  
Bukiyo was silent for a long time, thinking. Then he said, hesitantly, "Do you think it meant anything?"  
  
"I don't know! That's why I came to you!" Shinzo looked at him helplessly before bowing his head. "Sushi always came to you, not me, so I figured you knew something I didn't."  
  
Bukiyo shook his head, but the other male seemed too interested in the carpet to notice.  
  
"It felt like it meant something, though," Shinzo finally ventured.  
  
"Okay." Bukiyo sighed and stood, making his dark-headed cousin look up in surprise. "Shinzo, I'm coming home with you to stay a few nights."  
  
"You don't trust me to look after her myself?" Instantly Shinzo was on his feet, glaring at Bukiyo. "You don't think I can do it?"  
  
"Actually, no. I don't," Bukiyo answered, looking distastefully at the temperamental male. "I'm calling Satsu to tell her."  
  
"She's not coming, too!" Shinzo exclaimed, thinking of the girl who would glare at him with hateful rose-pink eyes, flapping her translucent wings angrily and flicking icy blue hair in his face before turning her back on him.  
  
"I didn't say she was," Bukiyo answered coldly. "She has a friend staying over tonight."  
  
"...oh," Shinzo muttered before falling back down on the couch. Bukiyo headed into the kitchen to call Satsu, coming out a few minutes later with the strangest look on his face.  
  
"Well, what is it? Did your sister forbid you to come or something?" Shinzo asked with a smirk, making Bukiyo blush again.  
  
"N-no, of course not," he shook his head, the color of his cheeks returning to normal. "But...I think we should wait here for a while."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I have the feeling someone's going to call," Bukiyo answered after a moment, averting his eyes from Shinzo's.  
  
"So, and tell me if I'm wrong here, my sister could be in mortal danger, possibly hanging on to life by a thread as we speak, and you decide you're going to _sit there_ and _wait_ for a stupid phone call that you have the feeling is going to come?" Shinzo demanded, his voice getting louder as he went on. "Bukiyo, what kind of cousinly behavior is _that_?"  
  
"It's an important phone call," Bukiyo answered lamely. Something in his voice made Shinzo look at him harder, catching the way his eyes darted around nervously and how his hands were, ever so lightly, shaking.  
  
"Bukiyo?" Shinzo's tone was soft this time.  
  
"We can't leave until we get this call, Shinzo!" Bukiyo practically shouted, violet eyes widening as he realized how loud his voice was. "I mean, this isn't just like a feeling, it's more like...I don't know, a premonition or something..." he paused, taking a shaky breath. "It's about Sushi."  
  
"Do you think it meant something?" Shinzo asked the question Bukiyo had used earlier. The male nodded.  
  
"I think it means a lot. I didn't see anything like you did, but it was a really strong feeling..." he trailed off, hearing the telephone ring.  
  
"Shit," Shinzo muttered, looking towards the kitchen.  
  
"Piles of it," Bukiyo agreed. 


End file.
